Customs, municipal treasurers get ax from DOF

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, acting on separate rulings of the Office of the Om­budsman, had dismissed a Bu­reau of Customs (BOC) officer and two municipal treasurers.

Dominguez directed Cus­toms Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon to dismiss from the ser­vice Customs Operations Offi­cer Khalid Minoao Calandada and likewise instructed Exec­utive Director Nino Raymond Alvina of the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) to also remove municipal treasur­ers Ananie Raluto of Zamboan­ga del Sur and Eddie Rodriguez of Occidental Mindoro from the government ranks.

Another municipal treasur­er, Carlos Bengil of South Cota­bato, was ordered suspended for one month.

With just four-and-a-half months into the Duterte ad­ministration, Dominguez has so far taken punitive action against 14 employees under the De­partment of Finance’s (DOF) supervision for various offenses, ranging from simple neglect of duty to grave misconduct, based on the results of separate inves­tigations by the Ombudsman, the DOF said in a statement.

In the latest batch of dis­missals, Calandada was ordered dismissed by the Ombudsman based on charges filed against him last year by the DOF-Reve­nue Integrity Protection Service (RIPS).

Calandada, with the rank of Customs Operations Officer I, was found guilty of serious dis­honesty for his repeated failure to declare certain properties and misleading declarations in his Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Networth (SALN) from 2008 to 2014.

The Ombudsman said Calandada’s “deliberate asser­tions of falsehood made un­der oath” led it to uncover the following: that he was able to acquire a Mitsubishi Monte­ro Sport, a .45 caliber pistol, a shotgun, and incurred bank and personal loans of over P6 mil­lion, all of which he had failed to declare in his annual SALNs.

Along with dismissal, Calandada was also penalized by the Ombudsman with the can­cellation of his eligibility, forfei­ture of retirement benefits, and perpetual disqualification from holding public office. He was also barred from taking the civil service examinations.

Meanwhile, Rodriguez, in his capacity as assistant mu­nicipal treasurer of Santa Cruz, Occidental Mindoro, was found guilty of grave misconduct after the Ombudsman found him to have had an “indirect financial and pecuniary interest” in the procurement of P1.9 million worth of petroleum products from the private firm R4 Fuel, which is owned by his mother Lydia.

The Ombudsman also found out that R4 Fuel was able to bag the contract for supply­ing the Santa Cruz municipal government with fuel and oth­er oil products sans any public bidding or other approved alter­native modes of procurement allowed under the law.

Raluto, who was the munic­ipal treasurer and chairperson of the Bids and Awards Committee of Dumalinao, Zamboanga del Sur, was found liable for dishon­esty and grave misconduct for being one of the parties involved in the purchase of 3,332 bottles of liquid foliar fertilizer (1) with­out the benefit of public bidding and (2) overpriced by as much as P4.09 million, according to the Ombudsman’s findings.

Bengil, on the other hand, was merely suspended from office for one month for sim­ple neglect of duty when the Ombudsman found him to have made “an error in judg­ment” in subscribing to the purchase of P1.8 million worth of fertilizer for the municipali­ty of Norala in South Cotabato without conducting any com­petitive public bidding for its procurement.

Earlier, Dominguez or­dered the implementation of penalties ranging from dis­missal from the service to sus­pension without pay against eight municipal treasurers and two other Customs employees.

He has also ordered the filing of administrative charges against fugitive Laoag City Treasurer Elena Asuncion and had asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Commission on Audit (COA) to conduct a deeper probe into the over P85 million-worth of missing public funds under her accountability.

Acting on earlier Om­budsman rulings, Dominguez directed the BLGF to dismiss from the service municipal treasurer Angelita Roble of Tudela, Cebu and to suspend for one year without pay Local Treasury Operations Officer IV Marilou Rivera, the designated provincial treasurer in-charge-of-office of Misamis Oriental.

He also ordered the BLGF to suspend municipal treasur­er Cherryl Aguirre of Valladol­id, Negros Occidental for three months without pay, and mu­nicipal treasurer Rosita Sini­clang of Emilio, Ilocos Sur for one month and one day.

At the BOC, Dominguez directed Faeldon to suspend: for two months without pay Special Agent Samuel Gamao Saed, and for six months with­out pay Customs Operations Officer IV Jerry Gomez Ponce, both for simple dishonesty and simple neglect of duty.